The Other Side of Life Read online

  “Go ahead.”

  “You ride that kid awfully hard. He’s made some mistakes, but I’ve seen worse. Much worse.”

  “He’s a wiseass, Bos’n. Cocksure in abilities he has yet to master.”

  “That could describe every midshipman coming out of Annapolis.”

  “I’m trying to make him into a competent watch officer.”

  Middleton pinched a piece of tobacco off his tongue. “Commander, we’ve got twenty-four ensigns aboard this bucket. Slapping them around is my job, and the job of the other warrants, chiefs and senior enlisted men. Your job is to mentor these kids, teach them how to do their jobs. Give them some confidence.”

  “Confidence? Daniels is so busy polishing his Academy ring that he doesn’t know how wet behind the ears he really is. He needs to get his head out of his ass.”

  “Seems to be quite a bit of that going around here. Sir.”

  Middleton took a final drag, looking up to see if Kelsey had taken his meaning.

  He had, and he wasn’t appreciating the lecture. Not now. His next words were terse. “Anything else?”

  “One last thing, Sir.” Middleton softened his voice, as much as the big man could. He flicked his cigarette over the railing. “Maybe you’d like to grab a beer sometime?” The bos’n grinned. “No ‘O’ Club, we’ll go where real men drink.” His tone became more serious. “I got a baby girl of my own. Just turned five. Anyway, just thought maybe you’d want to have a drink sometime. Talk about things.”

  Kelsey felt his anger abating. “Thanks, Middleton,” he said, his voice almost pleasant. “I’ll consider the offer, as long as you’re buying.”

  Middleton understood a polite brush off when he heard one. “I’ve got to shove off, Commander. The offer stands.” He saluted and began moving aft.

  Kelsey headed for the bridge, climbing the series of ladders that would lead him near the top of the foremast on the forward superstructure. As he passed the third deck, he glanced down the bow of the mighty ship. She was twenty-seven years old; he had just turned four when she was commissioned. Neither of them had ever seen a day of combat.

  Men were stirring on each deck, but far fewer than normal as a large number of the Nevada’s complement of fourteen hundred officers and men were on shore liberty in Honolulu. Kelsey continued his climb, spitting his wad of gum into the water as he heard a faint echo of church bells in the distance.

  As he neared the bridge hatch, he paused to take in the commanding view of the harbor. Part of that view was obscured by the line of sister ships directly ahead. The Nevada was moored by herself at the end of the long column of vessels. Battleship Row they called it, right smack in the center of the harbor. The Nevada was at the rear, just behind the Arizona and repair ship Vestal. Beyond that, jammed together side-by side and flanking Ford Island, lay the Tennessee and West Virginia, followed by the Maryland and Oklahoma. The venerable California was perched at the tip of the alignment.

  Kelsey entered the bridge, perspiring from his ascent in the early morning humidity. He had served on the Nevada for nearly a year, most of that time as the Damage Control Officer, and recognized most of the skeleton crew that was manning the watch. He saw the diminutive Bryce Daniels propping open one of the forward windows and raising his binoculars in the direction of the nearby airfield on Ford Island.

  Daniels was a unique one, Kelsey had to admit. Nearly every newly-commissioned ensign is required to endure some form of hazing when they report to their first ship. But for Daniels, his initial weeks on the Nevada were brutal. When word spread that his father was a three-star admiral in the Navy Department, most of the wardroom officers immediately assumed the boy had coasted through the Academy thanks to a few phone calls from his old man. Fairly or not, that smear did little to endear him to the other officers. He was shunned by his peers and handed crap assignments by the junior officers.

  Unlike most of the others, however, Kelsey had read Daniels’ service jacket. At Annapolis, he had made the varsity boxing team as a 126-pound featherweight, earning his capital “N” letter after busting the jaw of his West Point opponent. He had narrowly avoided expulsion after school officials learned he had knowledge of a classmate’s cheating and had refused to report it, a clear violation of the honor code. After graduation, Daniels had eschewed submarines, where his father had earned his bullish reputation and applied himself at surface warfare school, where he excelled at targeting and gunnery.

  No, there was something to this young man. He had something of a streak of independence in him, and Kelsey respected that. Daniels just took it too far, refusing to rely on the guidance of others, always insisting he knew the proper course of action. His arrogance led to a series of failures and mistakes, most of which Kelsey, as his direct supervisor, was compelled to take responsibility for.

  Kelsey squinted in the direction that Daniels appeared to be looking. The airstrip on the small island appeared quiet other than a few mechanics and maintenance people milling around the parked aircraft. He approached Daniels and slapped him on the back, startling the young ensign. “I hope you’re not bird watching, mister.”

  Daniels lowered the binoculars and snapped to attention, the fatigue evident on his face. Kelsey knew from his own experience the boy had probably downed a gallon of coffee during his watch.

  “I beg your pardon, Sir,” Daniels said nervously in his thick Rhode Island accent. “We just got some radio traffic about low-level aircraft buzzing Hickham Field. I was checking to see if any of our fighters were up early this morning.”

  Kelsey rolled his eyes. “First of all, Ensign, why would any of our planes be flying over an army airfield on a Sunday—”

  “But, Sir—”

  “Do not,” Kelsey snapped at him, louder this time, “interrupt a superior officer. This isn’t your grandfather’s yacht in Newport.”

  Daniels opened his mouth to protest, and quickly shut it after seeing the death glare on Kelsey’ face.

  “Second of all, why did you light a second boiler?”

  Daniels swallowed hard, but the young man was self-assured if nothing else. “The snipes told me a single engine has been providing juice to the entire ship since Thursday, Sir. I thought it would make sense to light a second boiler and transfer the power over.”

  Kelsey couldn’t argue with that, but wasn’t about to admit it. “Third, perhaps your time would be better spent preparing the bridge for your relief. Where is my duty roster? Are we fully provisioned? Are the civilian work crews for the engine re-fit on board yet?”

  Daniels paused to make sure the commander was finished and began to answer, but was interrupted by a petty officer.

  “Commander, 0800, the Color Guard is standing by.”

  Kelsey nodded. “Begin.”

  Everyone turned aft as the ship’s complement of musicians, gathered on the fantail and awaiting a signal from the bridge, began playing the hallowed notes of “The Star Spangled Banner.” A detail of Marines hoisted the American flag as a squad stood by in their dress khakis. Kelsey and Daniels rendered a salute but both men looked upward as their ears picked up the sounds of muffled machine gun fire and explosions in the distance.

  Kelsey spoke softly. “Maybe someone is taking some target practice after all.”

  He raised an eyebrow as the explosions grew closer; louder now than even the notes from the brass horns that carried across the ship. “Pretty early to be doing any shooting with live ammo. Especially on a Sunday.”

  Daniels vigorously bobbed his head up and down. “That’s what I was thinking, Sir, not to mention—”

  “Commander!” cried out a sailor, who appeared in the passageway leading to the weather deck. “You ought to see this!”

  The band continued to play as Kelsey stepped through the passageway. Following the sailor, he quickened his pace to the Captains’ Bridge, the small exposed deck on the starboard side used during docking procedures. The sailor pointed to the northwest, out over Ford Island, and Kel
sey spotted a small formation of aircraft making their way over the Pearl City peninsula. Suddenly, the aircraft began strafing two light cruisers moored on the opposite side of Ford Island from the Nevada.

  “What the hell?” Kelsey muttered to himself. He grabbed a pair of binoculars resting on a nearby ledge and raised them to his eyes as the fighter planes finished their strafing run and passed a couple of hundred yards aft of the Nevada. Kelsey immediately felt a cold chill pass through his body as he identified the distinctive red circles on the wings of the dark green aircraft. He shifted his binoculars higher in the sky to the north, where he saw an endless number of Japanese aircraft descending on Pearl Harbor.

  “My God,” he gasped.

  Kelsey raced back to the bridge, stuck his head in the hatch and yelled at Daniels. “Sound General Quarters!”

  Daniels jumped in surprise, and Kelsey could see the confusion sweeping over the young ensign’s face. “Do it now, goddamn it! We’re under attack!”

  Daniels stood planted, his feet encased in concrete. The ship’s duty bugler was nearby however, and heard Kelsey’s order. He stepped to the public address box, blowing out the notes for the men to move to their battle stations.

  Kelsey cursed and rushed into the bridge. Pushing past the bugler, he reached the engineering panel and slammed his palm on the general alarm. Immediately the familiar klaxon began blaring across the ship and hundreds of men on board the Nevada, most still dressing or eating their breakfasts, sluggishly responded to the alarm as they had been endlessly drilled to do. The sailors dutifully climbed to their posts, grousing to each other about the officers scheduling an early morning drill on what was usually considered a day off.

  Kelsey moved back to the Captain’s Bridge and spotted a handful of torpedo planes darting across the harbor towards the Oklahoma and Maryland, anchored near the head of Battleship Row. As the aircraft sent their torpedoes splashing into the water, Kelsey raised his binoculars again and locked his eyes on the small slivers streaking towards the helpless warships. Two of the torpedoes struck the Oklahoma just below the waterline on the bow, the massive explosions causing the warship to pitch slightly upwards and then back down on the water. Kelsey looked on in shock as a third torpedo struck the wounded ship directly amidships.

  The successive blasts enveloped the entire ship, throwing crewman overboard and tearing lethal holes in her hull. It had taken mere seconds, but one of the most powerful warships in the entire Navy was already fully ablaze and beginning to list.

  Kelsey ran back into the bridge and shouldered his way past several new arrivals, expressions of confusion and early morning fatigue covering their faces as they hastily strapped on their life jackets and moved to their posts. Several were wearing only tee shirts and one was still in his boxer shorts. Kelsey grabbed the ship’s intercom, switching on the public address mode.

  “ALL HANDS! BATTLE STATIONS! BATTLE STATIONS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!”

  “Commander!” called one of the newly arrived lookouts on the forward mast. “Off the starboard quarter!”

  Kelsey did not have time to respond as three fighter planes swept in from the north and began strafing the Nevada from stern to bow. A handful of sailors and Marines who had taken station on the stern for colors were torn apart by the stream of machine gun fire as others dove for cover behind the aft seaplane crane and catapult base. With Kelsey’s frantic announcement, the sound of high-caliber ammunition tearing into the main deck and the screams of the wounded, the crew finally understood this was a real attack and rushed to man their guns.

  The attack had only begun just minutes ago and already several of the battleships were crippled and afire, barely able to defend themselves any longer. Kelsey looked out the thick windows ahead of him and saw bombs falling on the West Virginia and Tennessee, while an explosion rocked the bow of the Arizona.

  The Nevada’s bridge suddenly seemed to explode as a burst of bullets shattered the glass windows and tore into the enclosed space. The petty officer who had been standing in front of Kelsey was thrown backward like a rag doll as bullets ripped through his body and tore off half of his skull. The impact of his mauled corpse knocked Kelsey off his feet. Splattered with the man’s blood, he pushed the remains off of him and stared in wide-eyed horror at the dead eyes. Eyes he had seen before.

  “Commander! You okay?”

  “Commander Kelsey, can you hear me? Are you hit?”

  He felt hands lifting him off the deck, and he looked around the bridge. There were now roughly a dozen men standing at their stations. Blood was splashed across the navigation table and the deck. Besides the fallen petty officer, several others had facial lacerations from flying shards of glass. All were gripping their life jackets and looking at him for direction. Kelsey wiped the sweat from his brow. The Captain was not on board and neither was the XO. That left him in charge.

  “Sir, we need to get out of here. Right now.” It was Middleton, the bos’n. When did he get here?

  “Clear the bridge,” Kelsey ordered, though his voice was quiet and uncertain.

  “No, Sir, I don’t mean the bridge. We need to get out of our moorings. We’ve got a lane to maneuver the ship.”

  Kelsey was coming back to his senses and stared at Middleton, incredulous. “Maneuver the ship? We need steam and tugs. We don’t even have a pilot aboard.”

  Middleton grabbed Kelsey’s bicep. “Sir, the boilers.”

  The boilers!

  Kelsey felt a surge of adrenaline and lifted the receiver from a sound-powered phone. “Engine Room, Bridge.”

  “Engine Room, aye!” came the reply.

  “This is Commander Kelsey. We’re getting underway. Make all preparations, fire up the service generators that we’ve got steam for and light off the other boilers and generators as fast as you can.”

  “You got it, Commander!”

  Kelsey hung up the phone and turned to Middleton, realizing he was the one man who seemed to have his wits about him. “We need to keep those planes off of us. Is Lieutenant Hotchkiss on board?”

  “He should be, Sir.”

  “Find him and tell him to open up every ammunition locker we have. Take command of our starboard anti-air battery; make sure every gun is firing.”

  He turned to Ensign Fowler. “Billy, same drill, port side.”

  “Aye, Sir!”

  The two men hurried out of the bridge. A warning was shouted and Kelsey’s eyes followed the extended arm of one of the crewmen. Another torpedo plane had appeared across the harbor, firing her missile at the Nevada and then banking away. Kelsey watched the torpedo plow through the water and head directly amidships.

  “INCOMING!” he cried out as the torpedo slammed into the ship, the loud explosion causing the ship to shudder and rock to one side.

  Thick smoke obscured their visibility from the bridge, so Kelsey quickly scampered down a ladder to Deck Five to survey the damage. Gun crews in helmets and life preservers were urgently loading and firing the five-inch and .50 caliber antiaircraft gun mounts sprinkled throughout the ship. He leaned over the railing and through the dense smoke saw that the torpedo had fully punctured the hull, creating a hole the size of a pickup truck. As Kelsey was attempting to calculate just how much water they were taking on, his eardrums nearly burst at the sound of a thunderous blast followed by several successive explosions. The blast concussion was so severe it knocked several of the men off their feet and Kelsey found himself struggling to maintain his own balance. He grabbed a nearby sound-powered phone and rang the crow’s nest, his ears still ringing.

  “Forward lookout! This is Commander Kelsey. What the hell was that?”

  Kelsey waited a few moments before he heard the reply. “Arizona, Sir! Must have taken a hit to her magazine! Jesus Christ, Sir, it took out half the ship!”

  Kelsey cursed under his breath as his mind was slowly overtaken by the names and faces of old friends serving on the Arizona. Realizing the Nevada would suffer a simila
r fate if she didn’t clear her moorings soon, he rang engineering again.

  “Main Engine Room, Smalls.”

  “Chief, it’s Kelsey. Report!”

  “We’re getting four of the steam generators on line, giving us two engines for propulsion,” said the chief, yelling into the phone so he could be heard above the din of the machinery space. “We should have enough steam up to get underway in about twenty minutes!”

  “Push harder, Chief, we don’t have twenty minutes.”

  Kelsey hung up, not waiting for a response. He moved to a twin .50 caliber gun mount where Middleton was directing a crew of Marines, their chattering guns throwing up streams of lead at a flight of Zeroes that had crossed over Ford Island in a strafing attack on the maintenance buildings and aircraft hangers.

  “How’re you doing over here, Bos’n?”

  Middleton pointed into the water. “See that dark current? That’s oil, probably from the Arizona. If we don’t get underway soon, we’ll be sitting in a barbecue pit.”

  “We should have enough steam any minute now. Find your line-handling detail. Get down to the quays, cast off as quick as you can. And then get your ass back on this ship.”

  Middleton grinned and gave Kelsey a quick salute, running off. One of the lookouts suddenly called out a hysterical warning as the distinctive high-pitched whistle of a falling bomb grew louder. Kelsey and the other men dropped down to their feet and hugged the main deck as the bomb landed just off the Nevada’s bow, sending a fountain of water onto the foc’sle.

  Kelsey picked himself off the deck and hustled back up to the main bridge. He realized then he had forgotten to leave someone in charge. As he entered the bridge, he saw Daniels standing next to the helm, the phone in one ear and a finger in the other. Kelsey almost smiled, feeling a surprising tinge of pride in the young man.

  Daniels saw him and hung up the phone. “Sir,” he said, his face flushed now with excitement. “Main Control reports we’ve got some power up. We can make turns for six knots now, and fifteen by the time we clear the harbor.”

  “Good enough. I’m short on deck officers right now and I need every available man on the AA guns. Find a starboard section to command and blow a few of these Japs away. Understood?”